Journalism in precarious times

The killing of yet another Indian journalist provoked outrage and anguish across India. The protestor expressed sympathy with the family of the bereaved, but India at large was anguished at the manner in which her death was being celebrated by few on the social space. Protestors from all walks of life saw her death and the misuse of the social networking sites as an effort to silence a critic of India’s ruling Hindu Nationalist Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).  

Ms. Gauri Lankesh, 55, was the editor of the independent Kannada-language magazine “Lankesh Patrike.”  Her killing was the latest in a string of similar attacks in recent years targeting writers, scholars, artists who faced a backlash and threats that were executed.  Gauri Lankesh was known to speak her mind. She said and wrote what she felt was right and believed in. She was a sharp and brave woman who knew how to fight. In doing so, she made several friends and equal number of enemies.
In November last year, she was found guilty of defaming lawmakers from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a story that she did in the year 2008.  She fought the case as she believed that it was a politically motivated and vowed to challenge her conviction in a higher court.

The police did promise to hunt down the assailants who gunned down Gauri Lankesh outside her Bangalore home. The task could have been easy with the CCTV footages showing the attackers. The anxiety of the protestors that the perpetrators of the attack like in many other cases would get away with impunity seems to be true. No arrests have been made as yet.  At the same time, their message in the form of placards conveyed a lot about Gauri Lankesh and the feeling of the masses. Banners that stood out said: “You can kill the person; but not her ideas,” and “Voices of dissent cannot be stifled by the barrel of the gun.”

Then there were many who welcomed the news with great happiness. Sample this tweet: The Twitter user identified herself as a journalist and a “woman like Lankesh”. The lady expressed that that it was Lankesh’s “karma” because of which she was killed.

Then there was another tweet by a man named Nikhil Dadhich, who introduces himself as a “businessman, garments manufacturer, Hindu nationalist” and says: “Honored To Be Followed By PM Sh. @narendramodi Ji.” Dadhich tweeted in Hindi that a ***** (a word that means a canine but is also used as an expletive) had died a dog’s death and all the pups were bawling.

These kinds of remarks are not only in bad taste but also reflect the state of the mind of those who don’t want kind of views against the ruling party and the Prime Minister. And these classes of people are not alone. Some media houses too joined the brigade. Instead of asking for justice for the slain journalist, they were more concerned about the remarks of the leaders and how they could target the government.  A minister in an attempt to evade the burning issue went to ask why there was no hue and cry when some RSS workers were killed in Kerela.

While Press Clubs across India were univocal in registering their protest, one voice that stood out was that of an anchor with NDTV. Ravish Kumar, took only those making tweets full of hate and asked the Prime Minister Narendra Modi how he could follow such people on the social network site. He was forthright in saying that media in India that was so powerful during the previous regime of Dr. Manmohan Singh is now “finished”.  He targeted those anchors that are known to be promoting the agenda of the government.

Ravish’s comments were hard hitting yet true. Lot of Indians claimed that they have stopped watching news channels on the television and have confined TV watching to entertainment and sports. Ravish went on to say that certain new anchors though working on private channels are not appointed by the government but act as if they are on the payroll of the government.

The situation is precarious. The killing of writers and journalists has put India and the ruling BJP in a tight spot. It does not matter how much the ruling party takes it in stride, but its position on human rights violations and India’s press freedom index surely is going to remain in focus. There is a need to adopt correctional measure, where press, writers, bloggers are accorded their importance and above all have the freedom to write that may involve a fair criticism of the government, its policies, its leaders; and let the opposition leaders be under the due watch of the media.